


Ten Words

by ProspertheXVIII



Category: The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994)
Genre: Gen, Prompt Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-06 14:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6758140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProspertheXVIII/pseuds/ProspertheXVIII
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of prompt-based one-offs set at various points before, during, and after the movie - Slut, Dance,  Name, Engagement, Danger, Ink, Hair, Surgery, Night, and Habit</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Handbags and Gladrags

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so here's the deal. I found some prompt list on Tumblr that I have since lost track of, and decided that just for the sake of character exploration/breaking out of my comfort zone I would pick ten prompts using a random number generator and try and write...okay, no set number, but a decent amount of words based on them. Inspired by an amazing collection of pieces called 'Five Further Adventures of Bernadette' written basically upon the same premise. My ten being:
> 
> Slut  
> Dance  
> Name  
> Engagement  
> Danger  
> Ink  
> Hair  
> Surgery  
> Night  
> Habit
> 
> Using any and all characters from the film, in an array of pairings, settings, and combinations. This first one is my personal favourite thus far...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Slut

No two ways about it, Bernadette was an utter slut - with no qualms about admitting to it to boot.  _Bernadette_  was - this wasn't to say that Ralph was the same.

It was quite miraculous, really. Everyone noticed it; not just him. It was just a fact that a drag persona is a character and nothing more, and that you become an entirely different person one you've got a face plastered in makeup and a pair of fake tits on; and to live vicariously as the woman you become whilst decked out in such a way was a perfectly common practice. But at least a touch of your charter's personality would cling onto your own; the girls exaggerated certain traits in a person rather than fabricating them. Not Bernie. They were fundamentally entirely different; Ralph was clearly not just your average poof, in spite of the fact that he certainly looked the part, in that he was subdued - almost quiet even; shy, spiny, and constantly on the defensive. He possessed a knife-edged wit, and a vocabulary of curse words and insults that could make a sailor blush; but these only came out occasionally. Different to your run-of-the-mill queen. More intellect; less fluff.

But as soon as Bernadette came out to play, all that was cast from the window and left in the rear-view mirror. She was a bizarre creature, really; far more overtly sexual than her creator, that was one thing. She had the confidence of a hundred; able to strut around onstage in barely-there costumes, cut down hecklers without batting a beaded lash, lip-synch as though her life depended upon it - and all with a smile on her face like she was having the absolute time of her life. Only to leave the stage at the end of the night, wipe away the glamour, and go back to being unextraordinary; back to never speaking unless to bite somebody's head off in self-defence, and to hiding behind his scarves and overlong hair, and to being constantly, inexplicably  _unhappy_.

And her promiscuity was something else entirely. Not only was she wont to spend her time sticking her arse in the faces of her audience and other such nonsense without a qualm as the influence of burlesque began to seep its way into the shows; but if ever she decided to step out into the audience in costume...Every single member of the troupe had caught her sneaking kisses with randoms behind the bar - more than a few had been on the receiving end. There were rumours of blowjobs in bathrooms; occasionally...more. Those types of relations generally came home with her; she was...loud, and that wasn't the best thing when others were present to be able to hear her. The first time, she had never heard the end of it. But regardless of time and place, if on the nights that Bernadette decided to venture out and get pissed she had not had her way with some Tom, Dick,  _and_  Harry, questions were asked.

Of course, not a single one of them ever stayed. The difference was far too stark; they had gone home with the glorious lovechild of Aphrodite and Dita Von Teese, only to wake up next to a shy, moody, exceptionally  _average_  twenty-something with smudged makeup and a bad haircut who hadn't had a second date in his life. It was shitty, but it was a shitty truth that he couldn't do fuck-all about. They all said they'd call, but never did; occasionally he'd pass the time with the same man twice, but the meetings would be months apart and they generally would have been unable to remember the morning's disappointment the previous time, have been too drunk to care the night before, or both at once. Once again, shit, but it wasn't as though he had much he could do about it.

The misery was absolutely chronic, and he had absolutely no idea why. It was inexplicable; so many things made him uncomfortable - made  _Bernadette_  uncomfortable - and each and every single one of his -  _her;_ it was always Bernadette that coaxed the men in and did the talking, and the... _doing_. Ralph was just the morning after disappointment - conquests felt unenjoyable. Dutiful, even. He found himself resenting his own body, or rather the use of it. He could give fellatio and be on the receiving end of a good fuck without a second thought, but turn the tables, and...Urgh. It disturbed him, for reasons he couldn't quite place a finger on. He could pinpoint incidents; slapping a man for placing a hand up his skirt - and he knew for a fact it wasn't him being prudish, because he had at that point been Bernadette, and Bernadette was anything  _but_  prudish. It just got under his skin for reasons that he couldn't quite articulate.

Ralph stood up from his position sat on the edge of the hotel suite bed. The man currently laying in it was spent entirely - Hugo-Barry-Guy-Stephen-Joseph-Tyler-John-Paul-George-Ringo-Whatsisfuck (he'd be lucky to ever remember the name of a conquest) was on his back, naked as the day he was born (though considerably hairier) and snoring gently. He hadn't been that good, and not very well-endowed either -  _Jesus, Bernie was really scraping the bottom of the barrel with that one_ , he though to himself as he paced to the bathroom. He wasn't entirely sure how much of Bernadette still lingered about him - he had a corset on, but he knew his hair was his (he'd felt the bear draped across the bed pulling it earlier.) Christ knows what kind of state his makeup was in. He regarded the heels and frock abandoned by the room's door - as they had stumbled in, they had been voracious as only the young and drunk can be, tearing each other's clothes off as he - well,  _she_  - led him into the room and onto the bed. They'd kissed, trailing impromptu affections across one another's faces, before they had given up denying what they had both come for, and getting on with it. What of his lipstick that hadn't been dragged across the stranger's face had come off on his dick; he guessed that, having spent its time there, it was now mostly in his own arse. It had been unspectacular, but at the time he had wanted it desperately -  _needed_  it, even.

He stood staring into the mirror, his hands braced against the marble countertop. It turned out that his corset - which finished just under where his bust was whilst he was Bernadette - was just about all he was wearing. He had suspenders on, but it seemed that one fishnet stocking had gone walkies; save for this, he was basically nude from below the waist. His chest looked bizarre; the contouring he'd applied to imitate cleavage had remained, but he still had the physique of a prepubescent girl - hairless, and entirely flat. Sighing heavily, he ran a hand through his hair - it was at that awkward stage of growth between long and short; sort-of framing his face with lacklustre blonde frizz that fell to his jawline. The makeup on the side of his face he guessed he had been leaning on had come away entirely, leaving him looking somewhat lopsided; bushy-eyebrowed and five o'clock-shadowed on one side, and meticulously, almost flawlessly feminine on the other, save for the half-missing false lash.

He remembered that Rod Stewart had once sung about ' _What becomes of you when they've finally stripped you of the handbags and the glad rags_ '...He guessed this was it. An overly-skinny twenty-three year old with a boring face, and an inexplicable dislike - no, a  _hatred_  - for his own body. He didn't understand it; he adored facial hair on a man, but even the slightest hint of it on his own face disgusted him. He almost felt embarrassed by his own cock, but clearly felt no qualms about having other people's rammed inside of him.

He was at his happiest when he was Bernadette...but even she carried around a strange air of tragedy. He would sit in the dressing room filled with the adrenaline of the knowledge that he was soon to perform as his better half - but with a certain melancholy as he remembered that as soon as the song finished, and the lights went down, and the curtain closed, he was either to go straight back to being plain, awkward Ralph Waite, or to stumble around for a little longer as Bernadette, only to have moments like this in hotel lavatories or in bed with strangers. It was a lose-lose really. He was stuck; stuck between a rock and a hard place - no, a  _frock_  and a hard place. Ha-ha.

Bernadette was a slut - enormously so. But then again, Ralph was not. She did what she wanted, and left him to pick up the pieces a few hours later. The lines only ever overlapped when he was on his knees with his face in somebody's arse - or  _their_  erect member in  _his_. As he stared at himself, he let out a weak gasp of a sob that had come from almost nowhere; almost as though he was mourning the loss of his darling Bernie. But also out of jealousy for her; men threw themselves at her feet, and never called him back after they'd done the deed - Bernadette could have her pick of any man in a crowd of hundreds, whereas Ralph could hardly get one to make eye contact with him.

He sunk to his knees on the tiles, now in tears as mascara ran down one side of his face. He could hear whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was in the other room stirring, before calling out his name and telling him to come back to bed - no, not him; he'd called on  _Bernadette_. Fuck...It was so unfair. She had to fight the men off, and he could never manage to make them stay. It was in that moment he hated her with every fibre of his being; wished she had never come into fruition. No - wished she was fucking real. Wished she was  _him_. Not part-time, as was their current arrangement. He hated her being fictional; he wished that she could replace him. To lead her life of absolute glamour and effortless sex appeal, and not just in the evenings, would be a dream. He wished that he could walk down the street with her confidence, and her makeup, and beautiful clothes; he wished that he could make love in the daytime, rather than at night behind the veil of a costume.

He wiped away his tears with a balled fist, sniffling. The feeling would pass eventually, as it always did to one extent or another; he could meet her again the next evening. For now, he'd oblige; spend the rest of the night in the crook of this man's arm, before waking up, grabbing Bernie's things, and getting the hell out of dodge. Just like he did every other day. He'd walk back through, quietly apologising in Bernadette's sultry tones before lying down beside him, rigid as a board. Why should today be any different? But he couldn't quite manage it now for some reason. It hurt too badly.

He turned his head so that only the side still made up could be seen, running a hand gingerly down it. Pursing his lips, he let more tears fall - doing nothing to get rid of them once they streamed down his face and into his naked lap. He didn't understand it; not one bit. Bernie was a complete and utter whore - but he envied her, so much so he felt it twisting his guts and turning his mind to jelly.

"Why can't you just stay?..."


	2. Every Now and Then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Bathroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ship these two embarrassingly hard - this was irresistible

" _Fuck_..." Bob waited nervously outside the door to the bathroom; Bernadette had been padding around in there for a good two hours - they were set to leave in twenty minutes for Christ's sake, and she hadn't been so much as seen for such an inordinate amount of time. He heard her cursing violently under her breath as she threw something aggressively against the countertop; the patter of her bare feet as she paced around. He tentatively knocked at the door, grimacing.

"Bernie?"

"Oh shit...Bob, I..." she tailed off, before stopping short; judging by the sounds of things, she had just thrown something else. "That's it; I'm not fucking going..."

"Bernadette? You alright?" Not even in the depths of her pre-show nerves had he seen her het up like this. Then again, it hadn't quite been a week since Tick, Benji, and Adam had left, and she was on edge. He fervently checked the time - never a man typically bothered by timings and such, tonight was different.

"No, of course I'm not fucking alright," she barked at him, vicious and clearly upset by...something.

"Mind if I come in?" He waited a few moments; there came no answer. "Bernadette, we're gonna be late," he was almost forceful now - almost. Arguing with Bernadette he had come to discover was a pointless exercise, and he guessed that coaxing her out would be just as hard - but it was about all he really  _could_  do.

"I don't...Fine," she sighed, defeatedly. The lock clicked, before she opened the door a crack; standing just behind it as though trying to stop him from coming through it.

Half-done about summarised how she looked at that point. Half of her hair arranged into a curled updo atop her head; half a face of makeup on: one earring in. She had a towel wrapped around herself, clutching it in a fist at the centre of her décolletage. Her face was drawn and tense - not quite angry, and not necessarily upset either; rather some grey area between the two that almost pained him to look at. Her discomfort was apparent, and he didn't like it. "What's the matter?" He reached out, placing a hand on her bare shoulder and stroking it with a thumb. She sighed, glancing to the floor.

"I can't do this, Bob..." her response came as a timid murmur. "I'm...They'll hate me; Christ knows why you want to be seen with me..." The 'they' in this situation implied a few old pals from his short-lived army days; they were set to head out to some dinner/reunion nonsense in Alice - the taxi approximately seventeen and a half minutes away from arriving. He'd avoided the fucking things like the plague for all these years, but seeing as he could probably have hit the place they were going to by throwing a stone out of the window from he and Bernie's shared room at Lassetter's, he had no excuse this time. Bringing Bernadette hadn't been his idea; not that he didn't want to - not at all - but it had been suggested to him, and without thinking he had RSVP'ed without consulting her; to her unending chagrin.

"Nonsense, sweetheart, I..." he tailed off, once again regarding her face; saddened by the doubt and anxiety plastered all over it. "I know for a fact all of 'em saw your show In Sydney however fuckin long ago, and-"

"I've been glassed by people who saw the show - what's your point?" She looked away from him, squirming.

"Bernie, please," he couldn't think of anything else to say. "I can't go without you."

"And I can't go, period," she placed a hand on his shoulder, pushing him out of the way and walking into the room, turning her back to him. "I'm sorry, Bob...But I can't..."

"Look, would you just tell me what the problem is?" His tone mounted to something just south of anger as he reached out for her; attempting to get her by the shoulder and turn her around again.

"I don't know!" She snapped at him, sitting down on the edge of the bed in her towel. "Look, call me judgemental if you must, but your mates haven't got the greatest track record as far as receiving... _this_  well goes," she gesticulated down at herself, resentful. "And I can take people staring at me when I'm on the stage because I'm there to be stared at...but out here, they're an entirely different breed of people, and having you walk in with what may as well just be a man in a fucking dress on your arm, it won't..." Her voice cracked on the word 'man' and her head fell to her hands. He sat down next to her, draping an arm over her shoulder - this was possibly the only time he had ever looked over-dressed next to her as he sat uncomfortably in his collar and tie. She brought her head up a little; her face was wet with tears, what mascara she had been wearing running in rivulets down her cheeks.

"Bernie-"

"You don't understand it," she cut him off. "Even I don't understand it, after all these fucking years. I think I'm finally content, then something like this comes along and knocks me for six..." She gave a weak laugh, placing a hand on his leg. "I just...it's not obvious, is it?"

"Is what obvious?"

"You know..." She smiled gingerly, looking down at her body. Laughing through her nose once again, tenuous and insincere, she continued. "...Ralph."

"I...No, darling. Not at all," he smiled at her; they were making eye contact once again, which pleased him. That was the thing; she'd never look a person in the eyes if she was upset. "Why'dya ask?"

"I just don't want him to be the first thing that people see when I walk through those doors," she groaned. If ever she spoke of her past life, it was in the third person; as if her old name was just some troublesome friend or brother from her youth rather than a part of her. "I mean, he was the first thing that you saw..." That struck him like a punch to the gut. He remembered that excruciatingly well - the thoughtlessly lumping her together with the other two and drawing to quick conclusions; referring to the trio as 'you blokes', only to see her face fall as her smile went from genuine to a mask - the light had seemed to leave her eyes.

"Bernadette..." Her name - that gorgeous, gorgeous name that rolled off his tongue like it had been made to - was about all he physically could say. "Listen to me darling, you're the most astonishing, beautiful woman I've ever had the pleasure to meet in my life...anyone who can't see that in you...well, that's their problem, not yours."

"I know," she shrugged, pursing her lips. "I...thank you," she turned, placing a kiss on his cheekbone; her hand on the other side of his face. She leaned on him after she pulled away, resting her head on his shoulder, dabbing at the corner of one eye with her knuckle. "Sorry...spent too long wearing out the mirror; thought too much; worked myself into a state..."

"Don't worry about it," he held her closer, winding a lock of her ashen blonde hair around his fingers.

"You're sure they won't mind?"

"Positive. And if they do, then we all know that you're capable of kicking em all the way to next Tuesday - and you have my permission to do so," he watched her grin at the remark, leaning in even closer to him.

"God, I love you..." She lay down with her head in his lap; towel having fallen to her waist as she'd let it go, exposing her breasts.

"Same to you, darling," he looked down at her, drinking in her face and her body with his eyes. "Now d'ya by any chance fancy getting dressed now?" He checked his watch again. "Taxi's here in nine minutes."

She bounced up as though she had springs in her hips, grabbing at the towel, before dashing once again into the bathroom. "Shit!"

* * *

The dress she wore was a warm grey - clinging to her figure in all of the right places; revealing just the most delicate hint of her cleavage; long-sleeved and full-skirted, with a slit up one leg. Diamonds at her throat - more in her ears - she looked positively radiant. Breathtaking, even. And with all of about a minute to spare.

"Well?" She stood, allowing him to survey her with the meekest of smiles on her face. "It's not too...young for me, is it?

"Wow..." He beamed, staring with the utmost pride at his date for the evening. She covered her face with a hand as she grinned; her ears turning red.

"You're not...embarrassed? I mean...This isn't too much?"

"Not at all - you're gonna knock them all the fuck out," He offered her an arm as she made for the door where he waited for her - her shoes were black patent peep-toe numbers; her nails done up just so. "Shall we?"


	3. That Which We Call a Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Compared to the last one, this is both stuff and nonsense, and very short. However, I'm chuffed with it nonetheless. Now, this one is based upon little but my own personal head canons. Credits to the notion of Felicia's name origins go to the fic 'Young Hearts Run Free' (which is amazing; go and fucking read it) but the rest is my own crap. As for the Del Bra vs. Mitosis debate - I included a nod to that; personally I prefer the film version of Mitzi's name, so that's the one I stuck with

"Ladies, I  _have_  to ask..." Adam spoke as he sat on the ground in front of the pitiful excuse for a fire burning in front of them. "The names...why?"  
"Whaddaya mean 'why'?" Tick stared at him quizzically; they had been stranded in the desert for all of a day and a half; he was going to set off in search of help in the morning, - Bernadette's attempt having fallen flat on its face thanks to his frock and Adam's painted-on tits - but for now all they really could do was drink and talk. Adam had most of the talking covered; Bernadette the drinking. Jesus fucking Christ that woman could hold her liquor. She had given up on glasses at this point; classlessly slugging Stoli straight from the bottle every minute or so.

"I mean," he rolled his eyes. "Where did your names come from? I mean, we all know that you," he turned to Bernadette. "Didn't pop out of the womb only to have 'Bernadette Bassenger' scrawled on your birth certificate-"  
"Be careful," Bernadette side-eyed him, glowering. "Be very careful."  
"Look, all that I'm asking is why the fuck did you choose your names? Where do they come from?"  
"Why the fuck does it matter?" Bernadette evidently couldn't be bothered with the preteen-kids-at-Girlscout-camp prattle. "That which we call a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet."  
"Hoity-toity, Little Miss Smarty-pants," Adam curled his lip, waving his hands about his head until Bernadette hit him across the face with the magazine on the ground beside her.  
"You're possibly the only person I've ever met who can be absolutely hammered, and start quoting Shakespeare," Tick marvelled. "Right then, Felicia - seeing as this conversation was your idea, you start."  
"What, me?"  
"No, the  _other_  Felicia, you fucking imbecile," Bernadette rolled her eyes.  
"I mean I woulda thought it was obvious," he was met with a blank stare. "Honestly, how stupid  _are_  you people?"

"Just get on with it," Bernadette snorted.  
"Fine...it's a dick joke. Happy now?"  
"Well, it's clearly not a very good one seeing as none of us got it until you told us, and I'm honestly still struggling to get it."  
"Oh my lord, Bernice, so simple for one so well-read... _Fel-i-ci-ah_ ," he exaggerated the movements of his lips, repeating the word syllable by syllable a couple of times. " _Fel-la-ti-oh_. First boyfriend came up with it - allegedly, I fellate like a jolly good fellow. I thought it was quite clever, personally."  
"Classy."  
"Oh, keep your fucking muzzle on," Tick groaned. While one would have thought it would have dulled her wit, booze tended to only make Bernadette snippier; unless she was in the sort of state she had gotten into in Broken Hill, and that had taken a good two and a half bottles of...something strong. Clear tequila, if his memory served him correctly.

"Okay then, Mitzi. Your turn," Adam beamed almost sickeningly.  
"I don't fuckin'  _know_...I liked the sound of it, okay? Was I meant to have some ulterior motive? If I was, I don't think I got the memo. I was Mitzi Mitosis when I started out - Del Bra was..." He gave a slight cough, looking at the ground. "My wife's..." He tailed off with some awkward gesture apparently meant to mean 'idea'.  
"God, you guys are so  _booooring_ ," Adam drawled; Bernadette taking another few swallows of vodka. "And what about you, Bernie? Come on, tragic name like that's gotta have come from somewhere."  
"Oh piss off," she scowled at him. "Bernadette Lafont if you must know."  
"Bernadette Lawho now?"  
"French actress," Bernadette looked down her nose at him - literally - as she tapped her nails against the bottle. "I thought she was sex on legs when I went through my mandatory teenage 'straight phase' - well, straight  _male_  phase, really - and...well, I was twenty minutes away from gracing the stage for the first time at seventeen years old, and it occurred to me that I didn't have a name. Bernadette was the first thing that came to me, and I guess it just...stuck."  
"Well, what's 'Bassenger' all about?" Tick was almost interested now. "I mean, that's not even a word."  
She shrugged. "I don't know. I like alliteration; it just sprung to mind."  
"What, so you're telling me that you legally changed your name to something you came up with in five minutes backstage at a gay bar as a teenage boy, after some random foreign actress you used to fancy?" Tick was almost aghast, struggling not to laugh at the sudden revelation.  
She gave a humoured snort, realising how stupid it sounded when said out loud. "Well...yes. That's about the size of it, isn't it?"  
"Holy  _shit_ ," Adam was practically pissing his sequinned pants, rolling about the floor laughing.

"At least it's more tasteful than a thinly-veiled oral sex metaphor."

 


	4. A Girl's Best Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Engagement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it stands, this one is another favourite of mine. It's basically never addressed what the fuck Trumpet was to Bernie, in the film at least (I've not yet been blessed with the opportunity to see the musical) so here's my filling in the gaps. It was slightly alluded to that they were married, but I personally like this idea more.

"You're  _what_?" Tick had parked his ass on the makeup table Bernadette was currently sitting in front of, working her magic.  
"I'm engaged...I think," she smiled with a raise of a pencilled eyebrow, before opening her mouth about as wide as it'd go in the inexplicable yet obligatory 'putting on mascara' face.  
"What do you mean 'you think'?" He was still struggling to process it a bit. The dressing room was bustling with other queens in various states of dress and undress, shouting bullets of conversation at one another.  
"I mean 'I think' - god, Mitzi, you can't possibly be that stupid..."  
"Bernie, you can't be  _kind-of_  engaged. It's not a kind-of thing - you can't be half-pregnant," he pointed out, checking his lipstick in her mirror before readjusting his breasts.  
"Well, what do you want me to tell you? Exactly what happened?" She scooped her blonde hair into a lazy bun at the back of her head, pulling a wig cap on over the top of that.

"Well, that'd be a start."  
"I...it really wasn't anything that hard to picture; quite typical, if you ask me. I doubt he put more than about a minute's thought into it," she spoke through a girlish giggle; more excited than he had seen her in a while. "Look, we were out for dinner; he drops to one knee just before the desserts arrived, and...well, I said yes, didn't I? What more do you need to know?"  
"How's that an 'I think', then? It seems pretty legitimate," Tick squinted at her.

"Well, I...I'm just trying to figure it out still, you know? It's just not sunk in...it isn't real yet," she leaned back, grinning broadly. "Shit, I'm on fucking cloud nine...never thought he'd do it. I always had this down in my head as some silly midsummer night's fling; five years later, and..." she looked down into her lap where her hands were resting. "Jesus, what's a pretty young thing like him doing with... _this_?" She gestured down to herself. "Twice his age, with more grey hairs than I can count, and beaver tails for tits...I'm no trophy wife, am I?" She pondered that for a moment; she knew fine well that she was in his eyes, but not for the standard reason of youth, beauty, and body - and he sure as hell wasn't marrying her for her money either...she guessed he was in a sense; he was marrying her for the reason she was a couple of grand in debt - the reason she  _had_  no fucking money. Not that she would admit that, but the 'sixty-four thousand dollar question' as she tended to refer to it was a stupidly large factor in their relationship. An elephant in the room, but a factor nonetheless. Regardless, she was happy.

"Oh shut up; you don't look a day past thirty," he waved her off. "Well, the proof's in the pudding, Bernie my sweet - we've blabbed for long enough; show us your diamond," she sighed, holding out her left hand and giving a coy smile as he marvelled at the rock gracing her ring finger. "Fucking hell, Bernadette; I've seen smaller houses...who'd he have to kill to get ahold of hardware like that?"  
"Honestly, the amount that he spoils me, I'm beginning to suspect he's running a drugs cartel," she chuckled. "I think it's the Bank of Mummy and Daddy; the pair of them hate me on the grounds of me being about the same age as them, but they love the little sod to bits - whatever keeps him happy."  
"Well, good for you," he hugged her tightly, planting a kiss on her cheek. "Bags I get to be your Maid of Honour."  
"Oh, like that was ever a question," she placed an arm around him; still a little more giddy than she would care to admit.

* * *

It wasn't even a month later that Tick found himself trudging out the back entrance of the Imperial; hands firmly in his pockets as he walked past the brawling drunkards and into the phone booth some distance outside of the hotel. The weight of the phone call in the dressing room was still pressing on him like hands around his neck - Marion... _Benjamin..._ the thought of telling the others... _fuck_. This was just not his night. Feeding the payphone with change, he sighed heavily as he punched in the number that was almost etched into his muscle memory he dialled it so frequently.

"Yeah?..." The voice he was met with was evidently Bernie's; but huskier than usual. Thickened, as though she had been crying.  
"Bernadette? It's Tick," he paused, waiting for a response that never came. Sighing, he pressed on regardless; he was probably imagining the crying - odds were she had just been awoken by him. "Listen, sorry to call you so late, but..." He paused; if the hollowness of her breath, and her sullen silence was anything to go on, something actually  _was_  amiss. It definitely sounded as though she was, or if not had recently been, in tears. "Hey, are you okay?"  
An elongated, pregnant pause came, before she inhaled shakily, and replied. "No, I'm not..."  
Tick frowned, his concern for her mounting. "What's the matter?"

* * *

On the other end of the phone, Bernadette was... _numb_. Back in that state of shock by which she had been unable to compute what was happening, or register it as being a true event; but not in that state of elation, on a high of happiness. Oh no; this type was malicious - she felt it sitting in her stomach like a tiny pit; her words were catching in her throat, and her voice coming out shaky and not quite hers. She toyed with the engagement ring on her finger - that ring which now meant almost entirely  _nothing_ ; its promise just as dead and gone as...No, she couldn't bring herself to say it. She didn't  _want_  to say it - saying it made it real. But regardless of whether or not she resisted letting the moment be and fessing up to what had just happened, she couldn't change a thing - and besides, she couldn't just leave Tick on edge. Screwing up her face to keep the tears in as she took a breath, the words finally came out.

"Trumpet just died..."


	5. Fear Not for the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Danger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved the last couple I did - 'Slut' in particular - with the internal monologue cut through with action or dialogue, so that explains this. And I figured I've done way too many with just Bernadette; so hence why she's not in this one anywhere besides mentions. There are a few references to one of my other fanfics in here - 'Pouring' I think; cross-referencing is a habit I've had since the James Bond era of my tweens, and I can't get it to shift.

They all played a very dangerous game. Gayness in any respect came with its own set of trials; drag was worse; being transgender was just an entirely different ball game. Pursue the wrong man, and you earn yourself a pair of fat lips, and a jaw that you were ludicrously fortunate wasn't broken - a lesson that Adam had learnt the hard way. Saying the wrong thing; acting the wrong way; wearing the wrong clothes; wandering down the wrong alley. It was just a minefield. Even walking down a familiar street at the wrong time of night; stumbling by accident into the wrong crowd...Bernadette's horror story of stitches in her face and a week-long hospital stay, spluttered to him in a drunken babble years ago, had stayed with Tick for what he was sure would be a lifetime.

It was perhaps, one could say, the reason why Tick preferred to keep himself very much to himself; far from the madding crowd. The reasoning behind his mannerisms - bluntly refusing to acknowledge any stranger whilst out alone; hiding himself behind drab clothing which Bernadette told him all too frequently looked like bin liners in various shades of grey; resenting speaking of his profession to anyone he wasn't 100% sure would understand. Tottering around Broken Hill's main drag in that ludicrous frock had, in concept, been his idea of a perfect hell; made only worse by Felicia's furs and corsets. His mistrust was staggering - mistrust for people, and places, and all sorts of other things.

He spent his life drifting between various states of discomfort and fear; that was one of the things that kept his...relationship with Mitzi off the rocks - she had no such problems, and no such anxiety; only grandeur and elegance and confidence. Only problem being, he couldn't be her twenty-four-seven- walking around as her was a risky business indeed, so he could only have fleeting snatches of twenty or so minutes in her shoes and frocks. He still wasn't quite sure why he did it - some bizarre form of masochism, probably.

The not knowing was what scared him - not knowing who was around the next corner, or waiting in the audience with a bottle in hand, ready to fling. It happened all the time; to people like him, almost always without reason.

Fair enough, Adam had signed himself up for the incident in Coober Pedy, make no mistake - the idiotic little shit surely wouldn't be getting blasted off his ass and tottering out dolled up to the nines again any time soon. But the things he had heard from the other queens at the Imperial - if it wasn't their misfortune, it was that of a friend, or a friend of a friend. Everyone knew someone-or-other who'd had the shit kicked out of them for existing. His closest port of call being Bernadette, of course. She'd had endless encounters with hecklers, and drunk dipshits throwing shaky punches in her time, but...'the incident', as it was tentatively referred to, was a concept that horrified him. She'd been somewhere in her early thirties; walking home at the end of a night - some beefcake had jumped her, and beaten the ever-loving shit out of her without any real reason. She'd had a laundry list of broken bones in her face; and to this day, still possessed a clavicle made more of metal than it was bone. If one put a hand in the right place on it, they could still feel the heads of the screws; he could testify to this. He felt...lucky. In a sense - he had no such experiences to speak of.

He sucked at the filter of a cigarette, perched on the kerb beside Priscilla; they'd parked in a layby some few miles out of Sydney for some rest before the final slog of the journey. Back home to his old life - minus a certain jaded transsexual, of course; a precocious eight-year old in her place. Benji was, to the extent of his knowledge, still asleep in what had previously been Tick's own bed - he'd adopted Bernadette's, and Felicia had stayed put. He pressed a sweaty can of cola (he would have preferred something harder, but the 'first aid' cabinet had been denuded of all but a half-full bottle of Stoli, which Adam had already called dibs on; this'd have to do) to his equally sweaty forehead - mid-January, the heat was relentless; day or night - as he sat there in his pyjamas; he had plans to actually drink it, but the cold was something he was far from ungrateful for, and he was taking advantage. He had entirely mixed feelings about being back - fatherhood being an evidently daunting prospect in itself, and his usual fears had mixed with it, creating a foul, damn-near-impossible-to-swallow cocktail of emotions and anxieties. Because he couldn't very well be a father from a hospital bed.

The doors to the bus opened, and Adam's tanned figure stepped out; clad only in his underpants, with a blanket draped around his shoulders. The aforementioned Stoli clasped in one hand, he took a seat on the dusty ground by his counterpart's side, giving him a thin-lipped smile; uncertain.

"Penny for your thoughts?" He cocked his head, placing an arm around Tick's shoulders. He was fucking roasting; radiating heat, rendering Tick's flesh even more unpleasantly damp and sticky beneath his touch. Christ knows why he'd felt the need to bring his bedding with him. Giving an exhausted sigh, Tick looked away from him, pursing his lips.

"I'm not sure," he put a hand to the back of his neck, toying with a few strands of hair. "I was just...thinking."

"We know from experience that's dangerous."

"Oh fuck off, you bimbo," came his sardonic response

Adam pondered for a moment, before speaking again: "...Nope, I got nothing...Winding you up 'snot as much fun as Bernadette. She gets pissy; you just get miserable," he gave a tenuous laugh. "I think I miss her, honestly."

"...Me too."

"Figures; you've been friends since the Stone Age," Adam jested, shaking Tick by the shoulders in an attempt at getting him to liven up; not working. He let him go finally, turning almost serious. "Mitz, what's the matter?"

"I'm just...not sure. Y'know...I know it might not feel it, but this place is fucking scary," he sighed. "If anything happened to me before, the only person I was hindering would be me, and whoever I was doing a show with that week. Now, I...I was thinking about what happened to you out there-"

"That was in the middle of fuckin nowhere, and it was my fault," Adam was almost soothing at this point, but his words fell on deaf ears. "You've got nothing to worry about."

"Not just you though...I mean, every queen and her poodle knows somebody who's got the shit kicked out of them for no reason, and I-"

"This is about Bernadette, isn't it?"

"What? No - I-"

"Not about missing her, you tit," he rolled his eyes. "About...y'know..." No words were needed; there were three things you didn't mention around Bernadette, and 'the incident' was one of them - alongside Ralph, and her age. Regardless of her absence, discussing it felt like sacrilege.

"No- yes...Kind of," he admitted. "It's just...I don't just have myself to think about anymore, do I?" He nodded towards the bus where his son lay asleep. "Maybe this is it."

"What's 'it'?" Adam cocked his head scrupulously.

"You know what I mean; maybe Mitzi should just hang up her frocks for good. For him."

"Tick, don't be stupid," Adam raised an eyebrow at him. "Look...what the fuck are the odds of...?" He tailed off with an awkward hand gesture. "You'll be fine. Just don't do anything risky."

"But...I know you were, but what about Bernie?" Tick almost snapped at him. "And she was worse - we both know it. All that she did wrong was leave work a minute too early, or too late - people get beaten up for no reason constantly, Adam; people get fucking killed..." His voice was hushed almost to a whisper now. "What if that happens to me?..."

Adam, for once in his life struck dumb, only hugged him once again, bringing him back into the muscled heat-pack of his embrace. "...Mitzi's not the problem, darling. If it happens, it happens...getting rid of her won't make you any less... _you_. And if you're not wandering around in costume, then it's the you that people are gonna see and go for."

"...It's fucking dangerous, Adam...Jesus, I'm shitting myself..." His voice was fragile; wavering.

"It's gonna be fine, Tick," Adam gave a weak smile; never had Tick thought that he was, in his campiness and annoyingness, capable of understanding on this sort of level. "And if anything does go wrong - which it won't - then I'll be right there to help fix everything; and Benji'll have his Auntie Adam to look after him. You have my word."

He leaned his head against Adam's shoulder; sighing as he looked towards the glimmer of the city's lights in the distance. The place never slept, did it? Yes, the danger was real; and his fears had been omnipresent for the last seven years; every single second he had spent in Sydney's concrete jungle. They weren't fucking going anywhere, and no amount of Felicia's well-meaning reassurance would shoo them away. But in spite of the reality, and his anxiety...when it came to the crunch, the danger was a thing of slim chances and bad luck. What could he do? It was out of his hands.


	6. Permanent Consequence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Ink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More post-movie fluff. Yet another heavy influence of 'Fife Further Adventures of Bernadette' - the tattoo thing with Bernie comes entirely from there, and I must give credit where credit is due. I didn't want to rip the author off entirely, however, so a change in situation and central character was needed. And the tattoo artist is based hideously and shamelessly upon myself, or rather an idealised version of myself. Not apologising.

"A bet's a bet, Felicia - you made your bed, now lie in it," Bernadette folded her arms, a wicked smile having come across her face. The young brunet glowered at her - if looks could kill, there was a good chance that Bernie would already be sipping cocktails in the afterlife with Trumpet. The three of them stood outside the tattoo shop with folded arms; Mitzi and Felicia still in drag, Bernadette donning jeans and a blouse. It was about two o'clock in the morning - but drunkenness does weird things to a person, and apparently impromptu tattooing was of a higher importance than sleep.  
"Aw, come on, you know I don't like needles," He whined pathetically as Tick took him by the arm and dragged him through the door; Bernadette a few steps behind, relishing his protest.  
"Look, you knew exactly what you signed yourself up to," Tick pointed out, allowing himself a small grin as they watched the typical cool and sexy exterior of Felicia Jollygoodfellow dissolve into nothing bar childishness and a half-arsed tantrum.  
"Yeah, but-"  
"No buts," Bernadette cut him off coolly, pressing the 'ring for service' doorbell on the desk in front of them. She raise a snarky eyebrow, deriving far more pleasure than she really should have been from the whole experience.

"Evening ladies, what can I do you for?" The girl who appeared from the room behind the desk was almost too sprightly for the time of morning - petite, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and bespectacled; with a ring in her septum and tattoos creeping up above the neck of her shirt, and snaking around what of her arms they could see.  
"We don't need an appointment, do we?" Tick enquired, Adam still looking daggers between him and Bernadette.  
"Oh, let me guess," she place a finger on her chin in mock-thought. "Lost bet?" Adam nodded sheepishly. "Oh  _goody_ , another drunk guy's pasty arsecheek - is it my birthday or something?" She drawled facetiously, before breaking into a laugh. " _Well_ , which one of you sweet things is my willing victim tonight then?"

Felicia raised a hand, rolling his eyes. "Make that unwilling."

* * *

"Just think of how terrible it'll look when you're old and saggy," Bernadette taunted as Adam lay on his front; pantyhose rolled down to his mid-thighs, dress up around about the middle of his back, face like thunder.  
"At least I'm not  _already_  old and saggy, unlike  _some_  of us," he scowled at her, looking her up and down with a curled lip. "Cow."

While his excuse had been that he didn't like needles, the truth was that Adam didn't particularly like  _tattoos_ ; not on men -  _certainly_  not on women. They appeared graceless in his mind; all that they reminded him of were the shitty backyard sewing-needle-and-Indian-ink jobs scrawled across the knuckles and arms of the dickheads that had made school a living hell for him. Call it the ingrained prejudices of growing up in suburbia, but they seemed...dangerous. A practice reserved for gangsters and jailbait. After all, every lowlife homophobic ruffian and his dog was covered in the fucking things - he hated them.

As they'd practiced the ' _Shake Your Groove Thing_ ' routine earlier, he'd caught sight of something gracing Bernadette's thigh and a sizeable area of her backside during the tush flash move within the dance; something huge, and blue, and... _trashy_. So distinctly un-Bernadette. See, they leave her alone for a few months, and she comes back with a boyfriend and a tattoo - fucking typical. The blonde woman with the cat-eye spectacles worked her way over the side of his leg with the machine; mercifully, it felt a lot less like repeated stabbing with a small needle - more a sort of sharp scratching. He still wasn't necessarily enjoying the process; it still  _hurt_ , and it was still going to be on his body for-fucking- _ever_. Fuck both Tick, and particularly Bernadette. Fuck them hard.

"Be nice, Adam - get over yourself," Tick looked over the woman's shoulder to get a better look at the image currently being ingrained into Adam's skin.  
" _Fuck_ , how long have I been here?" He spoke through gritted teeth. "It bloody hurts."  
"About seven minutes," Bernadette glanced at her watch. "Child's play."

"I suppose you're talking about that hideous splodge on your arse?" Tick gazed at her, confused by Adam's remark. Sighing, Bernadette stood up begrudgingly; dropping her jeans to her knees, and pulling the waistband of her knickers to one side, revealing the peacock emblazoned in bright cobalt across her thigh.  
"I thought you knew."  
"Fucking hell..." Tick marvelled; still taking it in. "When did that happen? And why?"  
Bernadette pulled her trousers back up, taking a seat once again. She shrugged. "It was something to do. Your wife is a terrible influence."  
"I knew as much," Tick gave a nod of agreement, grinning. "'S why I married her."

* * *

The three of them looked on as Adam stood holding his skirt up, gazing at the reflection of his rear end in the mirror. "Well, I hope the two of you are bloody happy now," he rolled his eyes, almost begrudging a smile at how good a job had been done of the thing - about three inches below his left buttock; there permanently in black and white. At least the woman with the glasses and nose ring had done a good job of it - that was something to be pleased about. It was stuck with him forever, granted, but at least it was decent.  
Bernadette curtly nodded her approval with folded arms, biting her lip. "And you didn't cry either."  
"Well, that's me - hard as nails," he scowled at the two of them as Bernadette face palmed; Tick bursting out laughing and making no attempt to conceal it.

"Can I ask a potentially glaringly obvious question?" Bernadette asked with a furrowed brow. "Why a  _dog_?"  
"Not a dog, Bernice my darling," Adam smirked, turning to look at her. "She's a bitch."  
"But... _why_?"  
"I'm naming her Bernadette."


	7. Accidental Emergency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Hair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually the first one I wrote, and I'm honestly not the greatest fan of it. Ah well - it does the job, and I suppose it's funny in bits. I'm a bigger fan of the pieces with less dialogue simply because I don't feel as though I write it very well - I think my characterisation isn't half bad, but there are only so many synonyms for the word 'said', and the gestures and actions in between never strike me as being very natural or well-described. This particular scene is inspired by a miserable little incident from my childhood...enjoy.

The noise that had presumably come from Bernadette had been shrill; so sudden and high-pitched it could set one's teeth on edge. Tick had almost shat himself; letting out a low groan as he realised that as he had jerked, he had taken a good inch of skin off of his leg with the razor in his hand - shaving was a personal least favourite part of drag for him - or indeed for any sane person; 'Yoga in the shower with blades' as Bernadette referred to it. Grimacing, he stepped out of the shower in the bathroom at the back of the dressing room; hastily wrapping a towel around his midriff and paying no heed to the fact he was dripping blood all over the shop. He walked out into the well-lit, well-mirrored - if cramped - space; wringing wet, with bloody shaving cream running down his legs - half-expecting to have break up some stupid catfight. The night hadn't been awful, but it hadn't necessarily been  _good_  either, and whenever that happened, Felicia and Bernie were often wont to fling blame for it at each other - usually resulting in silly little squabbling matches and the very occasional slapped face or bloody lip; that took some substantial amount of booze, so was infrequent, but still a pain in the arse when it did happen. What he was met with was...well, it wasn't what he had expected.

Bernadette was sat in a makeup chair in her bathrobe; one hand clutching the back of her head - Adam was kneeling on the floor beside her, clad only in his underpants, face rather a picture as he held a hairdryer backwards, roughly level with Bernie's hand; the two were mid-conversation; Bernadette's voice strained as she stared at herself in the mirror.

"See, this is why having dressing rooms that aren't the size of fucking shoe boxes is important," she was speaking at an abnormally fast pace; still scowling into the mirror in disbelief.  
"Shit...what the fuck do you want me to  _do_?" Adam grimaced; staring worriedly at the innards of the blowdryer.  
"I don't know..." she had a strange hint of panic in her tone; it was about then that Tick realised something was amiss. "How badly is it stuck?"  
Adam pulled a face as his brain whirred in search of a way to put it without causing her to have kittens. Eventually, upon deciding that this probably wasn't possible, he'd settled on; "Erm...Think 'wig caught in a garbage disposal unit'," he cringed as Bernadette put her head in her hands, groaning.

"Care to explain?" Tick spoke tentatively, perching on the tabletop by Bernadette's side.  
"It's the complete lack of fucking space in here..." Bernadette practically whimpered, biting her knuckle. "Adam was sitting behind me drying his hair; I leaned back too far, and..." she gesticulated vaguely at her head with one manicured hand. She was clearly upset; that sort of wet anger that verges on tears, but never quite makes it. Tick squinted over Adam's shoulder into the filter at the back of the contraption; sure enough, the actual motor part of the thing was basically invisible at this point - covered by an enormous, tangled mat of sandy-blonde hair. He grimaced, placing a hand on Bernie's shoulder.  
"Bern, I...you're gonna have to-"  
"I know, I know," she waved him off, one hand still on her forehead.  
"Mitz, be a doll and hold this," Adam handed the dryer to a still somewhat flabbergasted Tick, before standing up, pulling on a shirt and heading for the door. "I'll go find some scissors," he flounced out of the room before either of the two could say a word. Bernadette sighed heavily.

"...He thinks I'm gonna kill him," she glanced to Tick; unable to move her head in the interest of not pulling her hair.  
"Well, you  _did_  throw a lamp at his head for calling you a name," Tick cocked his head, giving a thin-lipped smile.  
"Yes, but that wasn't an accident..." She muttered, running her fingers through the chunk of her hair caught in the back of the hairdryer as far as they'd go - it was stuck in there good; a two-inch square at the back of her head was completely trapped, a few locks and strands from further up caught in there too. There was only about an inch and a half of untangled hair in the worst areas. " _Shit_..." She moaned softly; almost lost for words.  
"Bernadette, it'll grow back."

"Yes,  _but_  I'll still have to endure months of looking like a total idiot; what's your point?" Long hair had always been a longstanding love affair of Bernadette's; she adored the versatility of it - the ability to change style every day, that sort of thing; - the way it looked on others; and more specifically, how it looked on herself. It was such a mainstay of her aesthetic; it had been a part of her since her late teens (and that was before the name Bernadette Bassenger had so much as crossed her mind, let alone rolled off her lips; Beatlemania could be attributed to that one.) She hid behind it, one could say. And superficial and disgusting as it was that she was getting so horrendously het up over something as menial and temporary as her fucking hair...she couldn't help it.

"It'll be  _fine_ , Bernie..." Tick placed an arm around her, and she put her hand on top of his, smiling weakly.

"I fucking hope so."

* * *

"...Well, I hate it considerably less than I had been anticipating," Bernadette was almost... _pleased_  as she spoke, angling the mirror in her clutch this way and that, almost unable to take her hands out of her hair...well, what was left of it, anyway. The floor and tabletop surrounding them were both almost completely covered in strands of ashen blonde. "Not that I'd have chosen to do it, but as far as 'making the best of a bad situation' goes..."

Adam stood some three paces behind her, arms crossed and a smirk on his face as he admired his handiwork. He still held the scissors he'd filched from behind the reception desk of the hotel. "Not bad for half an hour and a pair of blunt craft scissors if you ask me,"' he grinned at her; managing to illicit the smallest of smiles across her stony face - if she was even in the least bit happy with what had just happened as her voice would suggest, she was yet to let her features know.

Having previously just graced her shoulder-blades, Bernadette's hair now fell to somewhere slightly below her chin level; whilst she hadn't had the time to arrange it into her typical soft barrel curls (god knows she wouldn't be tying it up any time soon) it...though admitting it made her feel a tad sick, Adam had done a half-decent job.  
"And where exactly did you learn to do that?" Tick stared at him quizzically; now dressed, a band-aid on the self-inflicted gash in his shin. He had a cigarette hanging from his lips, standing beside Adam as the two regarded their female counterpart.  
"Oh please, I've been doing my mother's hair since I was nine," he scoffed, with a slight wave of the hand.  
"You really are just a walking stereotype, aren't you?"  
"Well, sorry we can't all be as interesting as you, AC/DC."

Bernadette brought the attention back to herself, tossing her head as she continued to stare at her reflection. She'd lost about six inches of her locks in one evening, and while the notion alone could have been enough to case a brain aneurism even the previous day, she...well, she guessed she was warming to it. She had to, after all; she was stuck like this for the foreseeable future. "Thank you, Adam...I think."  
"My pleasure, Bernie my darling," he leaned on her shoulder, and she rolled her eyes at him. "Any time."  
"Preferably not any time soon," she spoke through a halfhearted laugh, giving a meagre attempt at a smile to go along with it. "I don't think my blood pressure could take it."


	8. Pain in the Arse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Surgery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't ask how this relates to the prompt any more than vaguely, or how in the name of god I came up with this. There was a much less convoluted direction I could have gone in for this regarding Bernadette, but it was too obvious a choice, and I know next-to nothing about SRS, so didn't feel as though I should really write about it until I'm better-educated. Ah well. This is sort of funny, and I like it. I fell back in love with internal monologue recently, so this makes me happy.

"Well, this is a nice change of scenery."

"...It's a hospital ward."

"I was being sarcastic," Bernadette snipped, staring at the ceiling as she slumped in her chair, smoothing a lock of hair away from her face. Tick was still out for the count in the bed beside them; some twenty-something studmuffin in a fishnet shirt with a glass jar around his neck - Adam, she thought his name was - was sat next to her, about one insult away from commencing World War Three. She still wasn't quite awake; her night had been largely sleepless, and her day abhorrently stressful between Tick's incapacitation and his moronic friend's incessant need to piss her off - she wasn't in a good mood to put it mildly. This was her first encounter bar one with the younger queen, and they weren't exactly getting along swimmingly.

"Might I ask who the fuck you are?" The younger man cocked his head, raising one meticulously preened eyebrow at her. "I mean, I remember Mitz introducing you and you spending ten minutes scowling at me, but..." he tailed off, clearly without a 'but' in mind. He inexplicably spent his entire life addressing Tick as 'Mitzi' - regardless of whether he was in or out of drag, and it ground her gears. Sure, she tended to use his stage name interchangeably with his own, granted, but this behaviour struck her as...weird. She didn't know why, but all things considered, she didn't like it.

"What's it to you?" She scoffed at him, toying with her ring as she stared at the floor.  _Oh thanks a bunch, Tick_ , the thought to herself. There were at least a million other things she could have been doing; she had two shows that evening, both of which required Tick in some respect or another, so she had that to figure out - and yet here she was, waiting for him to come round, all the while getting the piss ripped out of her by some irritating ponce with an equally irritating face. 

"Well, Bernard-Bernice-Bernie-Whatever-the-fuck-your-name-is, I'm stuck with you 'til he wakes up, and smalltalk's generally what people do in this sort of situation, isn't it?" he leaned back, parodying her expression of disdain almost flawlessly.

"I wouldn't really class 'who the fuck are you?" as smalltalk, darling," she still refused to make eye contact with him as she investigated her fingernails; glancing every so often to Tick, in case he'd stirred and thus put her out of her misery. Alas, no such joy. "I'm a very close friend of Tick's if you must know. And my name's  _Bernadette_."

He gave her an irritatingly cocky, over-broad sneer. "Whatever," he leaned back, tossing his head of irritatingly perfect brunet hair and folding his legs. Bernadette was never one to form a quick opinion of a person...well, usually never. But as for Adam...Jesus, she had hated the little faggot on sight. That embodiment of overly-voracious homosexuality that was so feared by the great unwashed just didn't sit well with her; he was quite possibly the reason that the word 'materialism' existed; he had little-to-no regard for those who'd come before him, paving the way so his current life could be so cushy; and a head full of air to boot - he was pointless. Irritating and pointless.

And she hated - oh, she  _hated_  - the ways in which he sucked up to Tick; it all seemed like such a fake, self-serving display of arrogant sycophancy. She had known the man who currently lay unconscious beside them for seven years for Christ's sake, and as soon as Adam had appeared from whatever circle of hell he'd appeared from, she'd have been as well being the irritating bitch next door he spoke to her so infrequently - usually, only ever when she instigated a conversation would he humour her these days.

She understood, to a degree at least. When Tick had met her, she'd revelled in his admiration; as soon as he had learned of her days bar-hopping and tush-shaking with Les Girls, he'd been starstruck; not lest when he'd learned that she was  _the_  Bernadette Bassenger. She had loved it; while the power balance of their friendship had shifted from being one of admirer and admired to just that - a friendship - as they'd gotten used to each other, she'd have been lying if she was to say she hadn't liked the attention. She got why Tick put up with him.

Within the first month of Adam appearing at the club, he'd probably payed the awkward queen's rent in tips in said month alone. He adored Mitzi...but she and Tick were entirely different individuals. He didn't necessarily dislike Tick, but his friendship seemed dutiful; there only so he could snatch the odd moment with that woman who positively oozed the decadence and grandeur the man behind her lacked that appeared once he'd slapped on some makeup and a pair of breasts. She disliked this too. He seemed to have more fondness for Mitzi Del Bra, the character that had been crafted by Bernadette and played by Antony - in the image of all he wished to be - than he did for the real person who simply played her on the stage, and consequently his friendship with him struck her as slippery and false.

"D'ya think he's gonna be okay?" She heard Adam speak for the first time in a good few minutes, and made a soft noise of acknowledgement, before actually pondering how to respond to his question.

"Positive of it," she eventually settled on, this time glancing to him ever-so slightly. "I doubt very many people have ever died from a broken arm." She knew that personally she had survived worse, that was for fucking certain. And in all honesty, Tick should have known better than to try and tackle a flight of stairs whilst drunk and in heels in the first place; there was no doubt that he wouldn't be hearing the end of that from her, until that - frankly rather hideous - cast was off at the very least. She focused her sight on Adam as he sat by her side; the younger man was wringing his hands somewhat nervously, his expression drawn. A slight urge of pity struck her from somewhere within her; she came close to reaching out for him, but decided against at the last moment, settling for a somewhat hushed "You alright?" As much as they had gotten off on the wrong foot, and as much as she thoroughly disliked him, it was basic decency.

"Fine," he shrugged away from her as though she had slapped him, folding and unfolding his legs awkwardly - that was quite possibly the first time she could have ever attributed the word 'awkwardly' to this man. His arms crossed, pulled into his chest like a petulant child, he spoke again. "I just don't like hospitals." The response was curt and almost rude.

"Believe me, I'm not the biggest fan either," she wound a lock of her hair around her finger, a touch aloof. She was staring at the ground, refusing once again to look at him. True, she did spend a great abundance of her life in the fucking places; besides the obvious factor of what was going on between her legs, if she wasn't there on grounds of visiting people after idiotic mishaps such as this one, it was because either a friend, or worse still herself had had the shit kicked out of them by some dickhead hopped up on testosterone and VB. They had some extreme negative connotations for her, and for this reason they obviously made her uncomfortable. She had walked these corridors too many times for an abundance of horrific reasons...But she had to do what she had to do; Tick was her friend, and he would have - in the past, had done - the same for her. And at least a broken wrist - however badly broken it was; and the six pins that he allegedly now had in there definitely constituted badly - and a mild concussion didn't make for difficult viewing. The last time they'd been here in one another's company in this particular setting, she'd had a broken nose, swollen lips, and a chunk of glass in her head - she knew for a fact that that'd been hard to stomach for both of them. "Don't worry about it - he'll be up eventually, and then we can both get out of here," she gave a tenuous laugh; only there to punctuate her sentence with a little humour, and make it seem less heartless.

Adam murmured in acknowledgement. She almost preferred him like this; he was considerably more subdued, if childish and moody. She gave a weak smile, leaning back in her chair; yes, Adam would no doubt go back to bratty, irritating poof as soon as Tick was back with them, so to speak - personally, this would be the exact opposite of the first thing she wanted to hear straight after coming round from a general anaesthetic, but then again Tick was a lot more level-headed and patient than she. Ah well, every cloud; at least she didn't have to put up with him twenty-four seven.


	9. Love the Nightlife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably tell, these are not in chronological order in any way, shape, or form ^^; And I'm getting super carried away with the length of these - I'm gonna try and keep the final one short. Bernadette's inner monologue is great as far as writing goes; no reason behind the cold detail besides my having one a the time of writing.

Bernadette was not having a good night.

Her resignation from Les Girls had been, in hindsight, a mistake; handed in when her head hadn't exactly been particularly well-screwed onto her shoulders, almost in a spur of the moment. And not on the spur of a good moment either - she had felt trapped; as if it had been the only feasible option at the time. The incident about a kilometre each way between her old apartment and the club, concerning some drunk middle-aged bloke who'd beaten her unconscious and then left her essentially for dead in the gutter had been almost impossible to deal with at the time - she couldn't quite say it had broken her, but both physically and mentally, it had fucked her up. Between surgery on her fractured shoulder putting her out of action for about two months, and the two different rhinoplasty ops - her nose had been smeared halfway across her face; deviating her septum, among a bunch of other complications she didn't understand or care to remember - that had left her with black eyes that could make a cage-fighter cringe for about a fortnight each time, she had been unable to perform for the best part of a third of a year, and then she just couldn't bring herself to go back. She could have listed a thousand superficial excuses at the time, but the truest that she'd never admit to was that it had essentially been a diva tantrum; a way of milking the situation, or a ploy for attention. God, she'd been an idiot in those days.

She'd recognised her mistake, and exactly how monumental it had been, when it was too late; six months later, after removing her head from her own arse where she had so obviously buried it however long ago, in spite of her having made a name for the fucking lot of them - performing with them since the back end of her teenage years; acting as their poster child as of her mid-twenties at the very least - they wouldn't take her back. Ah well; a lesson in thinking things over for more than about ten seconds had been learned from that little blip - that much was true. But that had been about six years ago; Les Girls had since shut its doors for good, and having trailed her sorry arse halfway across the seething cesspool that was Sydney's current drag scene, wading through a multitude of crappy gigs to keep herself in home, food, and alcohol, she had finished up where she was at that moment.

She had never remembered the Imperial's drag shows being particularly  _good_  - the performers all struck her as dispassionate and jaded; the performances themselves overdone, unoriginal, and distinctly lacklustre; and the audiences always far too drunk and blasé to care about either. But then again, she hadn't been for years, and on the off occasion where she had turned up, she had been pissed as a fart within about five minutes of entering the doors. Sure, the $3.50 four-hour happy hour was both legendary, and good for her bank account - but Jesus Christ, she had nearly died. However, she had been desperate for work that wasn't in run-down dives or bizarre fetish clubs; riding on her Les Girls credentials, the poof who organised the whole shebang had agreed to take her on. It wasn't good per say, but it was the best she could make of a bad situation.

The first thing hindering any sort of enjoyment it was possible to derive from her evening - her first show at the hotel right on the horizon - were those accompanying her in the dressing room. Forty-three was old for a queen - even she knew as much, in spite of how little she wanted to admit it. But she had never truly felt old...that was, until she had stepped into the feathery, cluttered world of the Imperial's backstage. It was quite possible that she was the only person in there a day over thirty; forget about coming up for the mid-forties as she was; and by god, they had an astonishing way of making her feel ancient. Rambunctious larking around like schoolkids; passing around various bottles of booze as they prettied themselves up, the rims of said bottles stained practically every colour of the rainbow with their lipsticks; shouting over the tops of each other about complete and utter fluff - the breed of idle chatter that could only come from the young and stupid. And she felt as though she didn't belong. Not just due to how old she was - though that contributed to it a lot - but just out of her strangeness. She remembered the ambiance of the Les Girls prep rooms being incredibly close-knit and familial; no cliques or idiotic bitching, just one group. And newbies were always given a wide berth, particularly those who were seasoned performers. She'd started young; thus had been taken under the wing of a few older queens who'd shown her the ropes, and integrated straight into the group. However, as soon as somebody who knew what they were doing cropped up, they were treated like outsiders. It didn't feel right being there - it was as though she was intruding on something.

Secondly was the uncomfortable claustrophobia of the situation; dressing tables were shoved against every wall, and that space had been fought for; she had come close to breaking somebody's jaw with her elbow over a mirror. Dresses, shoes, wigs, breasts, makeup caddies...you name it; any and all drag-related guff was draped across every available surface; there was possibly about twenty people in the room, which it most certainly wasn't designed to hold; she had somebody's arse continually knocking against the back of her head as she attempted to apply her blush; if the incessant moaning and groaning, combined with the occasional rip of duct tape was anything to go on, whoever the fuck it was seemed to be in the act of tucking; for Christ's sake, didn't most civilised humans do that in a bathroom?

The final reason for her foul mood was something that nothing besides her own crappy immune system could be held accountable for, but it was ruining her evening somewhat regardless. She was at that moment nursing the head-cold from the seventh circle of hell - her sinuses felt as though they were full of glue; her throat killing her, lowering her voice from her usual unflatteringly masculine alto to something gravelly and barely-there, coming somewhere from the depths of her throat, which was equally unflattering, if not more so; her left eye inexplicably streaming; and her head had been splitting since roughly three o'clock the previous morning, aided not even slightly by the overloud conversations flying around the air. Having spent her day snuffling into a tissue at roughly thirty-second intervals, her nose was red-raw; this, combined with the bloke behind her jogging her arm with his rear end - in spite of not having been in possession of either for a good fifteen years, she knew that taping your dick and balls into the respective positions required for such activities as drag wasn't nearly as difficult or painstaking as he was making out, - and the eye thing that left her dabbing at her tear duct and reapplying her mascara pretty much every five minutes, her life on the makeup front really hadn't been made particularly easy.

She was struggling. Struggling to put her face on and keep it there; struggling not to lamp the guy behind her; struggling not to scream at the others to shut the fuck up...it was hellish. Les Girls had probably been exactly the same way, in fairness, but there she had known people; and she usually didn't feel as though somebody had funnelled cement up her nose, or dropped an anvil on her head. Ah well - the show must go on.

She momentarily halted her musings in order to scan her dressing table for a pair of tweezers, as one false lash dangled haphazardly from her face - the room's population had started to thin as three queens clad in feathered bikinis, ludicrously high heels, and little else, strutted out the doors and onto the stage as 'Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!' began to belt from the speakers. Christ - first all this shit, and now they were playing fucking Abba. It must have been her fucking birthday. Still unable to find the bloody tweezers, she furrowed her brow as she noticed the hand attached to whoever was beside her fidgeting around with her lipstick; she found herself having to resist the urge to slap him - settling instead on an icy:

"I think you'll find, that's mine."

He dropped it, taken aback - if by her brashness, or her death-growl of a voice, she couldn't rightly say. They both turned nearly in synch; a second of awkward eye contact before they proceeded to look one another up and down. The brunet fringe of his bangs fell onto his forehead, puppyish and almost endearing - young though he was, his hairline had already began to recede into a widow's peak; his brows equally as dark - the one not glued down to his skull wild and unmanicured; his eyes set deep into his face, icy blue. He had, in the nicest way that one could possibly say, the most tremendously awkward face that she had ever seen in her life; the expression he was making at her possibly cementing this fact. She broke the staring contest; turning around once again with the intention of finishing the task at hand. She wasn't sure, but she reckoned she had about twenty minutes until she was due on the stage, and she was certainly not twenty minutes away from being ready.

"If you don't mind me asking," he stammered, tapping her shoulder and forcing her to turn once more. He was wearing a similarly half-finished face of makeup; obnoxious clip-on earrings suspended from his lobes, and the most hideous, eye-assaulting lime frock. Green really was not his colour. "Where about did you get your boobs? They look fucking fantastic."

"Oestrogen," she replied, curt and moody; leaning in closer to the mirror and attempting to affix her eyelash properly. She didn't force several dozen pills down her throat every morning for the sake of a performance art, but this particular effect of her HRT was something she had realised came in handy for drag, as well as the whole 'not hating her own body' thing it was intended for; her ability to show off real cleavage was something most queens could only envy. Sure, it took a couple of chicken fillets and a push-up bra, but that was beside the point. However, along with this came naive questions from idiotic poofs such as the one beside her; all of which were dealt with in the same brash manner.

"I—...Oh," he started to speak again, before processing her remark and stopping short. He was staring at her so hard she could virtually feel his pupils burning into her; his eyes travelling between her face, breasts, and crotch.

"Why don't you just take a photo? It'll last longer," she snarled at him, still refusing to dignify his invasive crap with a turn of her head.

"I...sorry," he turned back to his own dressing table; his ears flushed scarlet. "I just-"

"Forget it," she scoffed, pulling her hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck.

"Look, I was just..." he stumbled over his words; she continued to apply her makeup, blasé. "I didn't understand-"

"No, you don't understand, so stop trying to."

"It's just confusing - between the voice, and the face, and the..." He gestured vaguely to her body. "I-"

"You're digging yourself into a hole, sweetheart," her tone was almost venomous. "And if you must know, I have a fucking cold; I don't spend my entire life sounding like Darth Vader following being punched in the throat."

"Try and see it as a compliment," his voice had taken up an awkward lilt. "I mean, you make a much more convincing woman than the rest of us."

"Which may have something to do with my being one," God, she wasn't much of a fan of gay men in the abstract, but drag queens were a whole different breed of rude and insensitive. They were the type of moronic arseholes that gave women like herself a bad name.

"I'm...look, I'm really sorry...none of that was really my place to say. I...I talk a load of shit when I get nervous," she glanced at him a little to see that he had offered her a hand in a gesture of greeting; as if the opportunity for such formalities hadn't passed quite some time ago. Turning fully in her seat, the ruffled lace of her skirts rustling, she raised a quizzical eyebrow at him. "I'm Antony - Tick if you want."

She took it with slight tentativeness, her face somewhat drawn. "Bernadette Bassinger. Pleasure."


	10. A Fine Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Habit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I initially considered doing some kind of monologue piece that shifted perspective from character to character; each talking about the other's bad habits. However, I figured that'd get too long too quickly, so we rounded things off with some Bernie/Bob. I've gone through and titled all of them - I figured that just using the word was a bit lazy. This piece turned out Bernadette-centric af, but it's cute, so who gives a shit?

Bernadette grimaced as she sat up, sudden. The first thing that became immediately obvious to her was the raging hangover - she gritted her teeth, pressing a hand to the side of her head. The second being that she evidently hadn't taken her makeup off - no, her face denuded of all but some smears of lipstick and eyeshadow, and an askew false lash, there was a perfect imprint of her previous evening's showgirl getup there in garish colour on the previously white pillowcase; the exact shapes of her lips, brows, and eyes there as though they had been drawn there. And the third...oh crap, the third...The third thing she noted was that she wasn't alone. Her legs were tangled with somebody else's; a foreign arm around her waist. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit,  _shit_...Adam and Tick had only just gotten finished ridiculing her about the  _last_  time; forget about the time before that. This wasn't happening; this couldn't have been happening.

Blinking away the last of the haze of sleep from her eyes, she glanced around her room; from the light streaming in from the crack in the curtains, to the heap of her own clothing, intwined with...somebody else's lying by the door. She made an attempt to pull away; the grip around her waist only tightening. Finally turning round to see who she had finished up in bed with, and praying it was a stranger, she stopped short; her eyes widening and breath catching in her throat with shock. Not  _again_.

"Crap..." She muttered under her breath; taking in Bob's blissed-out expression as he lay next to her. Oh for fuck's sake - not fucking  _again_. This was not good - this really was not good. She sat up fully, grabbing at the sheets and pulling them over her exposed breasts. Her hair was sticking out in every direction; another of her continued observations. God, she looked like shit - because that was apparently her greatest worry when she had just woken up from a night of drunk sex... _had_  it been sex?

She had vague recollections of the show; the three or four group numbers; Adam's 'Material Girl' that had seemed almost more suitable for a strip show than drag; Tick strutting around in leathers and a blonde bob wig as he tried to imitate Debbie Harry; and her own, slightly overdramatic but apparently nonetheless show-stopping 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'. Cocktails one, two, three, and four she remembered quite clearly; then it began to get hazy. She had a vague recollection of Felicia prancing around on the bar, singing loudly and off-key in a slurred alto; of draping herself over Bob's shoulders, and making some offer or another regarding coming back to her room, in that tone of false sincerity that could only mean one was well and truly shitfaced. Fuck. Now she was almost sure of it; God, it was all coming back to her now. They'd kissed in the bar, and had barely let go until they had flung themselves through the doors to her room; she now remembered in far too much clarity how they sat entwined in an embrace on her bed; bathing in the afterglow, barely dressed, and anything but sober.

Bob stirred somewhat as she stared at the wall in a slight disbelief, removing his arm from around her and sitting up by her side.

"Morning," he spoke through a yawn, placing a hand on her bare shoulder. She curled her legs into her body, giving a tentative smile as she took his hand in hers.

"We really have to stop meeting like this," she spoke through a gravelly laugh, pursing her lips.  
"It's your fault for making a habit of...well,  _this_ ," he grinned; shirtless as he embraced her. She brought one hand up; laying it on the forearm draped over her shoulder. He placed a tender, chaste kiss on her cheekbone, resting his chin on her bare shoulder. "Come on, darling...Loosen up; live a little. What's the worst that's gonna come of this?"

"If I have to tolerate one more breakfast punctuated by Adam chanting 'Bob and Bernie up a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G' then I'm going to commit murder," she stated bluntly.  
"That's it?" he gave her a quizzical stare, and she laughed slightly at the idiocy of the situation. For christ's sake; she was currently having the best sex of her life, with possibly the best man she'd known in it - why was she letting the teasing of Felicia and Mitzi hold her back from enjoying it? She never regretted the night's actions; only what was said about them by her counterparts. Why? Them ripping the piss out of her about her escapades with Trumpet had bothered her not a jot - why did she give a toss  _now_?

"Yes, that's it," she snorted, tossing a lock of hair out of her face. She took in his expression, and clipped him half-heartedly around the head. "Don't fucking laugh at me! It isn't funny."

"It is a bit," his fit of giggles was only aggravated by her turning to scowl at him. "Come on - we can't hang around here all day. I'm bloody starving." He rose to his knees, stretching his arms above his head; Bernadette merely collapsing once again into a heap on the bed.

"I'm not," she grimaced, pressing the heel of her hand to her head. "God, how much did I drink last night?"

"I have no idea, but I'm not convinced that I want to know," he gave another slight chuckle as she clumsily searched around her nightstand for her sunglasses; not looking given that it would involve staring almost directly at the window. "You're a bloody marvel, Bernie."

* * *

It became apparent within roughly two minutes of the two of them entering the dining hall that a rough night had been had by more than just the two of them. Tick had the most fantastically obnoxious sunglasses she had ever seen in her life obscuring most of his face; mug of coffee in hand, and a half-eaten slice of burnt toast in front of him. Adam was irritatingly chipper, however - in spite of her distinct memories of him throwing back more daiquiris than she had previously thought possible the previous night, only to chuck up in a potted plant and pass out under a table. Fucking typical.

He sat across from her, chin resting on a fist and his jaw set in a way that would have been almost masculine, had he not offset it by smirking at her. She rolled her eyes, dropping an alka-seltzer tablet into a glass of water and readjusting her sunglasses. He was muttering the words to 'I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine' not quite under his breath - loud enough to be both perfectly audible and astonishingly irritating, - nonchalantly swinging his legs under the table.

"Oh piss  _off_ , Felicia," she kicked him in the shin with one high-heeled foot; exasperated, exhausted, and exceptionally hung over.  
"Make me," he shot her that obnoxious, over-broad sneer; seemingly oblivious both to the fact that Benji was pelting him with grapes from about two tables behind him, and that one of said grapes had just landed in his Bloody Mary. "Sleep well, Bob?" He simpered at the man seated beside her, who had been looking down in an attempt to stop Bernadette from noticing his laughing - ineffectively at any rate. He gave a slight nod, accompanied by a knowing smile; Bernadette listlessly elbowed him in the shoulder.  
"Adam-"

"Oh please," he gave a squawk of a laugh that was equally as obnoxious as his grin. "We all saw you; we all  _heard_  you - and not just last night. Slipping into bad habits, are we Bernie?"  
"Shut your face," she side-eyed him as she gave something of an enigmatic smirk to her...well, not  _boyfriend_...live-in lover, she guessed. Paramour at any rate. Whatever noun you'd attribute to the two of them. "You're just jealous."


End file.
